458 


SPEECH 


University  of  Calif ornia  •  Berkeley 


<-,   .<-••'. 


s  DP  IE  IE  o 

DELIVERED  BY 


MAJOR-GENERAL  MCDOWELL 

m  Cpef  0f  %  $.$.  pilitsrs  Jfurm  an  %  $ari&  tost, 


AT  PLATT'S  HALL,   SAN  FRANCISCO, 

ON  THE 

EVENING    OF    FRIDAY,    OCTOBEE    21sr,    1864, 

AT   ONE   OF  THE 

Most 'Crowded  and  Enthusiastic  Meetings  ever  held  in  this  City. 


• 


IF>  El  IE  O  IE! 

OF 


HON.  JOHN  CONNESS, 

DELIVERED  AT 

PLATT'S  HALL,  SAN  FRANCISCO, 

.  1  ON 

TUESDAY  EVENING  OOTOBEB  18,  1864. 


V 


-" 


SPEECH  OF  MAJOR-GENERAL  MCDOWELL 


When,  soon  after  my  arrival  in  California,  I 
met  for  the  first  time  the  citizens  of  San  Fran- 
cisco on  a  public  occasion,  and  evaded  as  long 
as  I  could,  and  finally  declined ;  when  I  could 
evade  no  longer  making  an  address^  or  even  a 
few  remarks— though  the  occasion  made  it 
eminently  proper  and  fit  that  I  should  do  so — 
I  acted  in  accordance  with  my  feelings,  still 
unchanged  in  that  particular,  and  in  harmony 
with  the  antecedents  of  my  whole  life.  I  have 
ever  had  the  greatest  repugnance  to  mingling 
in  any  way  with  the  current  party  politics  of 
the  day.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  any  man 
throughout  the  United  States  of  my  age  who 
has  had  so  little  to  do  with  them  as  I,  and  it 
has  been  with  a  reluctance,  that  I  fear  I  shall 
fail  to  make  you  appreciate,  that  I  have  within 
a  few  days  broken  through  a  life-long  rule,  and 
attended  a  political  meeting,  and  ventured  to 
make  a  public  speech.  Nothing  but  an  over- 
powering sense  of  what  I  think  is  due  from  me 
in  this  crisis  could  make  me  so  far  deviate  from 
a  course  I  have  hitherto  followed,  and  which  is 
in  every  way  so  much  more  congenial  to  my 
tastes,  my  prejudices,  and  my  habits. 

But  I  have  been  told  by  those  whose  opinions 
in  such  matters  I  respect,  that  there  has  been, 
and  still  may  be,  an  impression  prevailing  to 
some  extent  in  the  States  on  the  Pacific  coast, 
that  in  the  political  contest  now  pending,  the 
sympathies  of  the  military  Department  of  the 
Pacific  are  generally  for  the  officer  who  has 
been  placed  in  nomination  by  the  party  who 
oppose  the  re-election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  I 

Also,  that  as  the  next  President  will  still 
have  war  on  his  hands,  it  is  the  belief  of  a  re- 
spectable pHrty  that  it  is  in  the  interests  of  the 
country  that  our  next  President  should  be  Gen- 
eral McClellan,  who  is  competent  to  carry  on 
the  war,  rather  than  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  is  not. 
That,  therefore,  it  has  become  a  question  of 
some  considerable  interest,  and  one  which 
would  be  apt  to  influence  many  well-intentioned 
and  patriotic  men,  whether  General  McClellan 
continues  to  receive  the  confidence  and  support 
of  his  fellow-soldiers,  for,  if  so,  under  existing 


circumstances,  this  would  be  an  argument  in 
his  favor. 

I  am  not  here  to  pledge  the  sentiments,  much 
less  the  vote,  of  any  person  in  the  military  ser- 
vice of  the  United  States  in  the  Department  of 
the  Pacific,  but  myself.  This  is  a  matter  for- 
eign to  my  duty  ;  but,  in  the  time  I  have  been 
here,  and  with  such  opportunities  as  my  duties 
have  given  me  to  become  acquainted  with  this 
command,  thus  far  I  have  heard  of  but  very 
few  persons  in  the  Department,  who  have  not 
the  opinion,  I  have  thought,  and  still  think,  all 
officers  and  soldiers  should  have  as  to  the  exist- 
ing war,  as  to  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  sup- 
port the  Government  should  receive  in  its  efforts 
to  maintain  it,  or  as  to  whom  the  government 
of  the  nation  should  be  entrusted — those  who 
now  administer  it,  or  those  who  seek  their 
places*  And  I  believe  they  will  do  as  I  intend 
to  do,  though  not  because  of  my  intention  or  of 
my  acts,  but  because  their  own  good  sense,  and 
their  true,  sound,  and  self*sacrificing;  patriotism 
tells  them  to  do  it— vote  for  the  re-election  of 
Mr.  Lincoln. 

In  ordinary  times,  when  the  country  is  in  its 
normal  state  of  peace  and  prosperity,  I  have 
ever  maintained,  for  reasons  too  obvious  to 
dwell  upon,  that  officers  and  soldiers  should 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  ordinary  political 
contests  of  the  day — not  that  they  should  feel 
no  interest  in  them,  and  exercise,  if  they  are  in 
a  position  to  do  so,  their  right  of  suffrage,  but 
that  they  should  not  take  an  active  part ;  but 
in  the  present  contest,  they  have  not  only 
the  general  interest  of  American  citizens,  but 
of  every  lover  of  civilization,  of  freedom,  and 
self-government.  Besides  the  special  inter- 
est— and  it  is  a  deep  and  abiding  one — that 
is  felt  by  every  person  who  has  done,  and 
is  again  to  do,  battle,  and  peril  health,  limb 
and  life  for  that  cause,  concerning  which  the 
stay-at-home  voter  speculates,  argues  and  ques- 
tions, and  this  interest  is  become  greater  since 
a  soldier  has  been  taken  up  b}  the  opposi- 
tion. I  feel,  therefore,  there  is  no  class  of 
Americans  to  whom  this  next  election  is  so 


momentous,  cone  who  have  a  better,  few  so 
good  a  right  to  be  heard,  or  whose  votes  should 
have  more  influence. 

As  the  political,  moral,  social  and  humani- 
tarian aspects  of  this  mighty  struggle  have 
been  so  frequently,  so  recently,  and  so  ably 
discussed  by  those  who  have  made  them  their 
special  study,  I  will  confine  my  self  to  theprac^- 
tical  question  as  to  whom  the  country  should 
entrust  with  the  management  of  this  war  from 
and  after  the  expiration  of  the  present  Presi- 
dential term. 

It  is  not  now  a  question  whether  a  better 
man  might  or  might  not  have  been  nominated 
from  the  leaders  of  the  Union  party,  or  a  bet- 
ter or  worse  General  might  have  been  taken 
up  by  the  opposition.  The  question  is  nar- 
rowed down  to  a  choice  between  two  per- 
sons—Mr. Lincoln  and  General  McClellan.  I 
have  not  read  with  any  great  care  the  Balti- 
more platform  of  the  Union  party,  on  which 
Mr.  Lincoln  stands,  or  the  Chicago  platform  of 
the  opposition,  on  which  General '  McClellan 
does  not  stand  !  and  I  think  the  mass  of  the 
country  will  not  recollect  much  of  either  of 
them.  But  we  laymen  in  politics  know  enough 
of  these  platforms  ;  enough  of  the  two  parties  ; 
enough  of  the  two  candidates  and  their  sup- 
porters to  be  able  to  see  the  postion  they  do,  in 
fact,  actually  occupy.  They  both  seek  peace  ! 

Mr.  Lincoln  leaves  us  in  no  doubt  as  to  the 
terms  on  which  he  seeks  it.  He  wishes  it  after 
the  rebellion  is  put  down,  after  its  armies  are 
defeated  and  dispersed,  and  the  flag  of  the 
Union  is  hoisted,  respected  and  recognized 
over  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land.  He 
does  not  want  peace  till  it  is,  nor  should  any 
true  American  wish  it. 

General  McClellan  either  means  to  seek  peace 
by  treating  with  traitors  in  arms,  as  if  they 
belonged  to  what  they  claim  to  have,  a  separate 
independent  sovereignty,  invaded  by  a  hostile 
foreign  nation  ;  to  seek  it  by  compounding  this 
felony  of  secession,  or  he  means  to  seek  it  on 
the  same  basis  and  conditions  as  Mr.  Lincoln. 

If  on  the  former,  the  question  needs  no  dis- 
cussion ;  if  the  latter,  then  it  comes  to  the 
point — that  as  both  are  seeking  the  same  con- 
clusion to  the  war  and  on  the  same  terms,  and 
I  am  willing,  for  the  purpose  I  have  now  in 
view  and  the  remarks  I  have  to  make,  to  admit 
it,  then,  wherein  does  the  character,  the  patri- 
otism and  the  talents,  the  acquirements,  the 
public  services  and  the  antecedents  of  Gen- 
eral McClellan  make  him,  rather  than  Mr. 
Lincoln,  the  better  man  to  carry  on  this  war, 
and  terminate  it  by  an  honorable  and  a  lasting 
peace  ? 

Both  these  men  have  been  before  the  nation 
during  this  war,  in  the  two  most  prominent 
positions.  It  is  so  well  known  what  Mr.  Lin- 
coln is,  and  what  he  is  not ;  what  he  has  done, 
and  what  he  has  omitted  to  do,  that  I  will 


only  refer  to  him  incidentally  with  his  opponent. 

It  is  not  pretended  he  has  made  no  mistakes, 
and  as  I  do  not  admit  he  should  be  set  aside 
because  he  has  not,  I  do  not,  on  the  other  hand, 
propose  that  General  McClellan  should  be  re- 
jected because  he,  in  his  turn,  has  made  them ; 
for  it  has  been  truly  said,  by  one  of  the  great- 
est captains,  that  "  he  who  has  made  no  mis- 
takes has  never  made  war.'7 

But  the  question  is,  is  it  true  that  General 
McClellan  has  that  breadth  of  brain,  that 
greatness  of  heart  and  that  depth  of  soul,  that 
comprehensiveness  of  view  united  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  detail,  those  high  professional  acquire- 
ments combining  the  theory  of  war  with  the 
practical  execution  of  its  laws  and  maxims  ; 
that  high,  pure  patriotism,  unsullied  by  any 
unworthy  ambition,  and  devoid,  as  he  so  fre- 
quently protested  it  was,  of  all  personal  COB- 
siderations?  Did  he  come,  as  he  says,  with 
reluctance,  and  at  a  sacrifice  of  his  private 
happiness,  from  what  he  calls  the  obscurity 
from  which  events  drew  him,  and — what  is  of 
more  consequence — is  he  honestly  anxious  to 
return  to  it?  Is  it  true,  as  he  states,  that  his 
nomination  was  unsought  by  him?  Did  he 
never  look  forward  to  it?  Did  he  never  do 
anything  to  procure  or  induce  it?  What  I 
have  to  say  will  bear  more  or  less  on  some  of 
these  points. 

I  do  not  propose  that  my  remarks  shall  be  in 
reference  to  events  in  their  chronological  or- 
der, or  in  any  particular  order  at  all.  Nor  do 
I  mean,  by  citing  some  instances,  to  have  it 
inferred  there  are  not  others  perhaps  stronger 
than  those  I  bring  forward  ;  but  they  are  those 
with  which  I  have  been  in  some  way  connected 
or  concerned,  and  in  relation  to  which  I  there- 
fore feel  more  particularly  called  on  to  speak. 

The  incidents  of  military  service  brought  me 
on  duty  in  the  city  of  Washington,  just  prior 
to  the  inauguration  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  In  the 
service  then  at  the  capital  were  Cooper,  Lee, 
Joe  Johnston,  Huger,  Pemberton,  Magruder, 
Sam  Jones,  Fields,  Lomax,  and  Elsey,  all  of 
whom  left  the  Government  in  its  greatest  need, 
to  become  leaders  in  the  enemy's  army,  and  I 
soon  found  myself  one  of  the  senior  officers 
there ;  and  as  I  did  not  follow  the  example  of 
those  I  have  named,  and  did  not  go,  I  natur- 
ally came  to  be  trusted,  confided  in,  and,  to  a 
certain  extent,  consulted.  The  most  of  those 
whom  Mr.  Lincoln  had  in  his  Cabinet  confess- 
edly knew  nothing  of  either  military  affairs  or 
military  men. 

It  was  thus  I  came  to  have  a  full  share  in 
the  responsibility  of  bringing  Gen.  McClellan 
into  the  military  service,  and  of  placing  him, 
so  far  as  my  opinion  and  earnest  recommenda- 
tion went,  in  the  high  position  he  soon  filled. 

Here  let  me  ask  your  pardon  for  referring  to 
a  personal  matter,  an'd  say,  once  for  all,  and  in 
answer  to  not  a  little  that  has  been  said  on  the 


5 


subject,  that  I  am  under  no  personal  obliga- 
tions whatever  to  Gen.  McClellan,  and  as  illus- 
trating a  prominent  trait  in  his  character,  I 
will  add,  that  I  once  thought  I  was,  in  one  par- 
ticular; but  1  see  from  his  official  repert  that 
he  says  he  "carefully  abstained"  from  doing 
what,  before  it  was  written,  he  told  me  and  my 
friends  he  had  done. 

Immediately  after  the  disaster  of  Bull  Run, 
Gen.  McClellan  came  to  Washington  to  com- 
mand the  forces  in  that  vicinity.  When  he 
first  came  he  had,  I  believe,  the  proper  feelings 
and  views  of  a  soldier,  and  was  for  immedi- 
ately doing  something  to  retrieve  the  ground 
lost  in  that  battle.  In  his  conference  with  m,e 
his  whole  soul  seemed  to  be  in  that  direction. 
He  wanted  to  know  how  soon  a  force  of  20,000 
men  could  be  had  for  a  short  service.  He 
spoke  of  coming  over  the  river  (Gen.  Scott  was 
then  in  command  in  Washington),  and  of  en- 
camping with  his  army,  He  came  at  a  time 
when  the  troops  on  the  Virginia  side  were  in 
large  numbers  going  out  of  service,  and  as  the 
force  he  named  could  not  be  immediately  as- 
sembled  from  the  command  on  that  side,  the 
plan,  if  any,  was  given  up,  and  nothing,  what~ 
ever  of  an  offensive  character  at  all  commen- 
surate with  his  forces — soon  increased  to  an 
immense  army,  with  the  enemy  for  many  weeks 
not  further  off  from  him  than  Oakland  is  from 
this  hall — was  done  during  the  months  of  Au- 
gust, September,  October,  November,  Decem- 
ber, January,  February,  and  March. 

Gen.  Barnard,  in  speaking  of  this  delay, 
says : 

"  Of  all  Gen.  McClellan's  faults  and  incapacities, 
nothing,  not  even  his  irresolution  and  mismanage- 
ment in' the  face  of  the  enemy,  or  his  inability,  ever, 
in  any  case  to  ACT  when  the  lime  came,  furnished  a 
clearer  proof  of  the  lack  of  those  qualities  which 
make  a  great  general  or  a  great  statesman  than  his 
failure  to  do  something  for  these  eight  months." 

Gen.  McClellan,  in  justification  of  this  delay, 
says,  after  reciting  the  instructions  given  to  the 
officers  commanding  the  armies  in  Kentucky, 
Missouri,  and  the  expeditions  to  North  Caro- 
lina, South  Carolina,  and  New  Orleans: 

"  The  plan  indicated  in  the  above  letters  compre- 
hend in  its  scope  the  operations  of  all  the  armies  of 
the  Union,  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  as  well.  It 
was  my  intention,  for  reasons  easy  to  be  seen,  that 
its  various  parts  should  be  carried  out  simultane- 
ously, or  nearly  so,  and  in  co-operation  ahng  the 
whole  line.  If  this  plan  was  wise,  and  events  have 
failed  to  prove  it  was  not,  then  it  is  unnecessary  to 
defend  any  delay  which  would  have  enabled  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  to  perform  its  share  in  the 
execution  of  the  whole  work." 

When  were  these  instructions  given?  To 
Buell  on  November  7th  and  12th  ;  Halleck, 
November  llth  ;  Burnside,  January  7th  ;  Sher- 
man, February  14th  ;  and  Butler,  February  23d. 

Well,  what,  if  anything,  was  done  by  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  prior  to  even  the  earliest  of 


these  dates?  Nothing!  Why  was  nothing 
done?  Was  the  enemy  inaccessible  to  the 
army  ?  No,  not  further  off  than  the  seal  rocks 
from  this  place.  Were  they  so  entrenched,  so 
fortified,  or  were  they  so  numerically  our  su- 
periors as  to  make  it  impossible  to  dislodge 
them  ?  Nothing  of  the  kind.  We  it  was  who 
were  intrenched,  and  our  forces,  compared  to 
those  who  occupied  Munson's  and  Upton's 
Hills  and  adjacent  positions,  were  more  than 
three  to  one,  not  counting  those  on  the  Wash- 
ington side.  Was  there  any  co-operation  re- 
quired from  any  other  army,  pr  was  any  possi- 
ble? No.  The  nearest  army  was  then  in 
Western  Virginia,  more  than  two  hundred 
miles  off.  Why,  then,  was  nothing  done  all 
time  by  one  who,  in  the  beginning,  was  so  anx- 
ious for  20,000  men  for  a  short  expedition  ? 
The  men  he  had;  and  the  enemy  had  greatly 
shortened  the  expedition  to  be  made.  It  was 
a  thing  to  be  done  between  breakfast  and  din- 
ner, and  involved  no  transportation  of  baggage. 
It  was  because  he  had  become  thus  early  filled 
with  ideas  of  personal  aggrandizement,  and  he 
cared  not  at  what  cost  he  pursued  them. 

It  is  well  known  to  many  who  were  in  Wash- 
ington at  that  time,  how — on  account  of  the 
hopes  centered  in  him,  of  the  immense  trust 
and  power  conferred  on  him  —he  absorbed  all 
the  interest  of  the  day.  Foreign  ministers 
spoke  of  him  at  the  dinner  table  as  the  next 
President.  The  opposition  saw  in  him,  at  an 
early  day,  material  for  their  present  purposes ; 
and  the  press  of  all  parties  vied  with  each 
other  who  should  sustain  him  the  most  thor- 
oughly. It  was  natural,  under  the  circum- 
stances, they  should,  We  all  did;  and  had  he 
realized  but  one  tenth  of  what  he  promised,  and 
had  he  shown  an  average  amount  of  earnest- 
ness, of  sincerity  and  of  disposition  to  self  sac- 
rifice  to  which  he  so  often  made  claim,  he  would 
not  now  have  an  opponent  in  Mr.  Lincoln  for 
the  Presidency,  but  would  have  gone  in  by  the 
acclamation  of  all  parties.  But  as  it  was,  he 
wanted  to  make  sure  of  his  case  ;  he  would  run 
no  risk  himself,  others  must  do  that.  He  cared 
not  at  what  cost  of  millions  of  treasure,  and 
took  no  thought  of  the  thousands  of  lives,  so  he 
made  his  election  sure.  He  had  the  highest 
place  in  the  army.  He  stood  well,  and,  fol- 
lowing the  old  adage,  he  stood  still !" 

He  says  in  his  report  he  had  hoped  to  make 
a  general  advance  during  the  good  weather  in 
December,  but  was  defeated  in  that  hope  by — 
not  the  condition  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
— but  as  he  says,  by  the  "  utter  disorganiza- 
tion and  want  of  preparation  which  pervaded 
the  Western  armies."  They  lacked,  he  says, 
when  he  came  to  command  as  General-in-Chief, 
"  transportation,  arms,  clothing,  artillery  and 
discipline," — certainly  a  bad  state  for  an  army 
to  be  in.  But.  he  does  not  say  that  one  of  the 
great  causes  of  their  deficiency  in  the  material 


6 


of  war  was  on  account  of  his  absorbing  every- 
thing for  his  own  army ;  for  even  before  Gen. 
Scott  retired,  he  had  everything  he  asked  for 
that  could  be  had.  But  his  army  being  in  good 
condition,  and  the  Western  armies  being  defi- 
cient in  everything  which  goes  to  make  an 
army  efficient,  is  it  not  strange  that  these 
Western  armies  moved  and  fought  the  battles 
of  Mill  Springs,  took  Fort  Henry,  Fort  Donel- 
son,  Columbus  and  Nashville,  and  reached  the 
southern  borders  of  Tennessee  before  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  under  McClellan  had  fairly  in- 
augurated its  campaign? 

Where  here  \\as  that  grand  co-operation  of 
which  McClellan  speaks,  and  of  which  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  was  to  perform  its  share  ? 
The  army  attacked  nothing,  and  did  not  pre- 
vent the  enemy — what  was  left  of  him — from 
retiring  at  his  own  good  pleasure  and  without 
molestation  from  Manassas,  and  going  where 
he  pleased,  and  wherever  his  means  of  commu- 
nication enabled  him.  This  grand  combina- 
tion was  called  in  the  language  of  the  day,  the 
great  Anaconda  movement.  It  was  claimed  for 
it  that  it  was  something  Napoleonic  in  its  com- 
prehensiveness, something  above  the  apprecia- 
tion of  the  ordinary  matter-of-fact  man.  What- 
ever it  was,  good  or  bad,  his  part  in  his  own 
plan  was  not  carried  out.  He  kept  his  own 
especial  well  appointed  army  inactive,  and  left 
the  badly  prepared,  badly  equipped,  badly  sup- 
plied Western  boys  to  do  the  fighting,  and  they 
did  it — and  no  credit  or  thanks  to  him,  either. 

In  connection  with  this  subject,  and  as  an 
illustration  in  a  remarkable  degree  of  the  rela- 
tions between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Gen.  McClellan, 
I  will  mention  here  some  interviews  between 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  mvself  in  the  early  part  of  Jan- 
uary, 1862.  What  occurred  struck  me,  at  the 
time,  as  something  so  extraordinary  in  the  his- 
tory of  a  great  nation,  revealing  a  state  of 
affairs  that  I  am  quite  sure  never  existed  be- 
fore, and  I  was  a  ssure  could  never  exist  again, 
that  I  made,  at  the  time,  notes  of  these  inter- 
views, and  have  thus  retained  them  fresh  in 
my  mind. 

The  questions  discussed  at  the  time  have  long 
since  become  matters  of  history,  and  I  feel,  on 
that  account,  and  because  of  existing  circum- 
stances, justified  in  referring  to  them. 

It  was  on  the  10th  of  January,  1862,  that, 
being  at  Arlington,  I  received  a  telegram,  and 
soon  after  a  confidential  note,  saying  the  Pres 
ident  wished  to  see  me.  I  went  to  the  White 
House,  and  was  ushered  into  the  northeast 
room,  where  I  found  the  President  and  Gen. 
Franklin.  The  President  appeared  to  be 
greatly  depressed  in  consequence  of  the  despe- 
rate condition  of  the  national  affairs.  He 
spoke  of  the  exhausted  condition  of  the  treas- 
ury ;  of  the  loss  of  public  credit ;  of  the  Jaco- 
binism in  Congress ;  of  the  delicate  state  of 
our  foreign  relations;  of  the  bad  news  just  re- 


ceived from  the  West,  as  contained  in  a  letter 
Prom  General  Halleck,  on  the  state  of  affairs  in 
Missouri;  of  the  want  of  co-operation  between 
Generals  Buell  and  Halleck,  each  having  to 
report  direct  to  Washington  ;  but,  more  than 
all,  of  the  sickness  of  General  McClellan. 

The  President  said  he  was  in  great  distress, 
and  as  he  had  been  to  General  McClellan's 
house,  and  the  General  did  not  ask  to  see  him, 
and  as  he  must  consult  somebody,  he  had  sent 
for  General  Franklin  and  myself,  to  obtain  our 
views,  and  our  opinion  as  to  the  possibility  of 
soon  doing  something  with  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac. 

To  use  his  own  expression,  "  if  something 
was  not  soon  done,  the  bottom  would  be  out  of 
the  whole  affair  1"  and  "  if  Gen.  McClellan  did 
not  want  to  use  the  army,  he  would  like  to 
borrow  it,  provided  he  could  see  how  it  could 
be  made  to  do  something." 

It  is  unnecessary  to  go  into  the  details  of  the 
conferences  had  on  this  occasion.  They  lasted 
several  days.  In  reference  to  the  movement  of 
the  army,  I  advocated  its  going  out  from  Alex- 
andria against  the  enemy  then  in  front  of  that 
place,  and  Gen.  Franklin,  at  first,  favored  its 
going  by  way  of  York  River.  We  directed  our 
inquiries  to  both  cases,  and  were  ordered  by 
the  President  to  obtain  all  the  information 
necessary  to  form  an  opinion  from  the  staff  offi- 
cers of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 

It  was  on  the  10th  of  January  that  the  Pres- 
ident in  person  went  to  the  headquarters  of 
Gen.  McClellan,  but  could  not  see  him.  Secre- 
tarv  Seward  had  also  gone  to  McClellan's 
headquarters,  but  was  refused  admission  be- 
cause the  General  had  been,  and  was,  so  sick 
that  he  could  not  be  disturbed.  This,  at  a  time 
when  Gen.  McClellan's  chief  of  staff  was  absent 
sick,  and  when  there  was  no  one  at  Washing- 
ton but  Gen.  McClellan  himself  who  knew 
anything  about  his  plans — whatever  they  may 
have  been — or  the  instructions  to  be  given  our 
armies  in  the  field  at  a  time  they  needed  them 
to  secure  their  effective  co-operation,  or  to  place 
them  in  a  position  or  condition  for  the  cam* 
paign. 

Yet,  if  you  will  refer  to  Gen.  McClellan's 
report,  you  will  see  that  just  prior  to  this  date, 
when  he  could  not  see  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  nor  the  Secretary  of  State,  he 
was  (January  7th)  writing  despatches' to  Burn- 
side,  and  I  was1  assured  by  a  gentleman  of  high 
character  and  position,  and  of  undoubted  ver- 
acity, that  at  this  very  time  of  our  conferences, 
he  himself  had  had  an  interview  with  McClel- 
lan, not  on  his  own  direct  application,  which 
had  been  denied,  but  through  the  intervention 
of  a  reporter  of  an  influential  newspaper,  the 
New  York  Herald. 

During  these  conferences  with  the  President, 
and  shortly  after  the  visit  of  the  gentleman  be- 
fore referred  to — if,  indeed,  not  in  consequence 


of  it — Gen.  McClellan  left  his  house  and  went 
to  see  the  President.  When  he  did,  the  Presi- 
dent told  us  that,  as  Gen.  McClellan  was  now 
looking  very  well,  and  would  take  charge  of 
the  army  himself,  he  would  dismiss  further 
proceedings  with  us,  but  he  wished  we  would 
come  together  once  more  and  meet  Gen.  Mc- 
Clellan. 

At  this  final  meeting  the  President  explained 
to  him  why  he  had  called  in  and  consulted  Gen. 
Franklin  and  myself,  going  over  pretty  much 
the  same  ground  he  had  already  gone  with  us. 
To  all  of  which  Gen.  McClellan  said,  "the  case 
was  so  clear  a  blind  man  could  see  it." 

At  this  meeting,  where  Gen.  McClellan,  Gen. 
Franklin,  myself,  and  several  members  of  the 
Cabinet  were  present,  the  subject  of  the  ensu- 
ing campaign  was  brought  up,  and  a  member 
of  the  Cabinet  put  a  direct  question  to  Gen. 
McClellan  as  to  what  he  intended  doing  with 
his  army,  and  when  he  intended  doing  it  ? 
After  a  long  pause,  he  answered  that  he  was 
very  much  averse  to  telling  his  plans,  as,  in 
military  matters,  the  fewer  knowing  them  the 
better;  that  he  would  do  so  if  the  President 
ordered  it! — but  "that  any  movement  of  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  must  be  preceded  by 
that  of  Buell's  army  in  Kentucky,  and  that 
that  movement  I  with  emphasis]  might  now  be 
forced  I" 

The  President  then  asked  him :  "  Have  you 
counted  on  any  particular  time — I  do  not  ask 
what  that  time  is ;  but  have  you,  in  your  mind, 
any  particular  time  fixed  when  a  movement  can 
be  commenced?"  He  replied,  he  had.  "Then," 
said  the  President,  "  on  that  I  will  adjourn  this 
meeting !" 

I  cite  this  as  an  example  of  great  trust  on 
the  part  of  the  President,  and  as  showing  to 
what  an  extent  Gen.  McClellan  was  allowed  to 
have  everything  his  own  way. 

This  movement  of  BuelPs  in  Kentucky, 
which  Gen.  McClellan  thought,  in  the  middle 
of  January,  could  be  forced,  was  nothing  less 
than  a  march  through  Cumberland  Gap  to 
Knoxville,  to  cut  off  railroad  communications 
from  Virginia  to  the  South  and  West.  This 
was  to  be  done  by  this  badly  supplied,  badly 
armed,  badly  clothed,  and  badly  disciplined 
army,  over  two  States,  Kentucky  and  Tennes- 
see, and  a  chain  of  mountains  ;  whilst  McClel- 
lan, on  a  subsequent  occasion  (October  7th, 
1862),  declared  that  he  had  concluded  to  adopt 
for  his  fine  army,  "the  line  of  the  Shenandoah, 
for  immediate  operations  against  the  enemy,now 
near  Winchester."  But  that  over  the  smooth, 
broad  stone  road  which  leads  up  this  valley,  he 
says :  "  If  the  enemy  abandon  Winchester,  and 
fail  back  on  Staunton,  it  will  be  impossible  for 
us  to  pursue  him  by  that  route."  "  We  can- 
not go,"  he  says,  "more  than  twenty  to  thirty- 
five  miles  beyond  a  railroad  or  canal  terminus  !" 

What  is  this  line,  so  impracticable  for  McClel- 


lan ?  The  very  one  on  which — a  hundred 
miles  from  where  he  said  he  could  not  go— the 
gallant  Sheridan  has  gone,  and  on  which,  near 
Strasburg,  a  day's  march  beyond  McClellan's 
stopping  point,  Sheridan  has  just  gained  his 
great  victory  over  Early  ! 

January  and  part  of  February  having  passed 
by  without  anything  being  attempted  by  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  the  twelve  Generals  of 
Division  were  called  together  in  council  at 
McClellan's  headquarters,  to  determine  on  a 
plan  of  action,  to  be  submitted  to  the  President. 
The  question  was  determined  on  personal 
grounds,  not  on  the  merits  of  the  case.  I  knew 
nothing  of  political  caucusses,  but  the  action 
then  appeared  very  like  what  I  suppose  them 
to  be.  After  some  discussion  between  the 
Generals,  Gen.  McClellan  came  in  and  submit* 
ted  his  plan,  which  was  to  leave  the  enemy 
where  he  was,  and  fight  him  where  he  was 
not ;  to  embark  his  army  at  Annapolis,  and  go 
around  and  up  the  Rappahannock  to  the  rear 
of  the,  enemy,  and  thence  into  Richmond  before 
the  enemy  could  take  his  army  back  to  its  de- 
fence by  direct  railroad  communication.  This 
magnificent  scheme  involved,  first,  the  divi- 
sion of  his  army  into  two  parts,  and  second, 
the  embarkation  of  the  larger  part,  with  its 
batteries,  cavalry  horses,  forage,  munitions, 
siege  guns,  commissary  stores,  teams,  etc.,  and 
transportation  of  the  same  by  water,  and  land 
marches,  to  the  gates  of  Richmond !  And  all 
to  be  done  in  a  week  from  the  time  it  should  be 
commenced, 

To  show  how  little  he  had  digested  his  own 
plan,  and  how  just  were  the  objections  urged 
at  the  time,  as  to  the  possibility  of  his  making 
such  a  movement  so  as  to  answer  his  purpose 
— -just  refer  to  his  own  opinions  when  he  be- 
came wiser  by  experience,  when,  on  being  re- 
proached by  Ilalleck  for  his  tardiness  in  coming 
up  wjth  his  army  from  the  Peninsula  to  rein- 
force Pope,  he  says — August  12th,  11  P.  M.  : 

"  With  all  the  facilities  at  Alexandria  and  Wash- 
ington (6)  six  weeks,  about,  were  occupied  in  em- 
barking this  army  and  its  material." 

Yet  he  was  to  march  forty  miles  to  Annapolis, 
and  embark  without  so  many  facilities,  and  get 
to  the  Rappahannock  in  a  week!  and  before  the 
enemy  should  find  it  out  and  get  down  to  re- 
sist him. 

I  opposed  the  plan  as  impracticable  at  the 
time,  and  for  the  purpose  required.  Three 
Generals — Sumner,  Heintzleman  and  Barnard 
— agreed  with  me  in  the  plan  of  going  to  the 
front  from  Alexandria  against  the  enemy, 
where  he  then  was,  with  the  whole  army,  in** 
stead  of  [a  part,  and  by  the  shortest  line. 
Eight  were  against  us — a  majority  of  two 
thirds.  Then  it  was  proposed — as  is  the  case, 
I  understand,  among  politicians — to  make  it 
unanimous.  This  I  refused  to  sanction,  so  far 
as  I  was  concerned.  We  went  to  the  President 


8 


in  a  body,  and  found  him  doubled  up,  sitting 
"by  the  fire-place.  He  said  he  was  glad  to  see 
us;  hoped  something  would  be  done;  for,  as 
he  remarked,  "  Napoleon  himself  cjuld  not 
stand  still  any  longer  with  such  an  army.  I 
don't  care,  gentlemen,  what  plan  you  have;  all 
I  ask  is  for  you  to  just  pitch  in  I" 

When  the  scheme  was  broached  to  him,  his 
countenance  fell,  and  he  said  he  did  not  see 
how  he  could  get  his  consent  to  allow  the  army 
to  leave  Washington  with  the  enemy  in  front 
of  it  and  the  Potomac  blockaded  ;  that  if  the 
army  was  to  be  removed  from  its  present  base, 
some  of  it  at  least  must  go  down  the  Potomac  ! 
Nothing  came  of  it,  however,  for  the  enemy 
havinsr  staid  as  long  as  he  pleased,  left  the 
Potomac  and  abandoned  Manassas,  and  we 
went  there,  after  they  had  retired  in  safety! 

McOlellan  then  went  to  the  Peninsula,  and 
took  up  the  plan  of  campaign  by  way  of  York 
River  and  the  Chickahominy. 

The  Peninsula  campaign  and  the  causes 
which  led  to  the  separation  of  my  corps  from 
Gen.  McClellan's  army,  are  among  the  most 
important  matters  effecting  Gen.  McClellan'b 
reputation.  Any  account  that  would  be  at  all 
justice  to  them  would  extend  my  remarks  be- 
yond the  time  that  can  now  be  given.  Fortu 
nately,  these  subjects  have  been  most  ably 
handled  by  one  who,  as  a  soldier,  an  engineer, 
as  a  man  of  the  highest  professional  attain- 
ments, of  the  greatest  military  knowledge,  as 
a  distinguished  graduate  of  the  Military  Acad- 
emy, and  subsequently  as  the  Superintendent 
of  that  institution,  as'a  mathematician,  and  a 
man  of  science  and  of  letters,  and  as  a  man  of 
character  and  perfect  independence  of  thought, 
has  no  superior  in  the  army  or  out  of  it.  I 
mean  one  not  unknown  to  many  of  my  hearers 
—Gen.  Barnard,  who  but  lately  gave  a  beauti- 
ful example  of  self  abnegation  in  asking  the 
President  to  withdraw  his  nomiation  from  be- 
fore the  Senate  for  the  place  of  Chief  of  the 
Corps  of  Engineers  of  the  whole  army,  when 
he  learned  that  his  senior,  Gen.  Delafield,  was 
strong  enough  physically  to  discharge  the 
duties  of  the  place. 

This  view  of  the  Peninsula  campaign  is  so 
full,  so  overwhelming,  that  I  am  sure  if  my 
friend — if  he  will  suffer  me  so  to  call  him — Mr 
W.  T.  Coleman,  will  be  at  the  pains  to  procure 
and  read  it,  he  will  have  an   internal   trouble 
in  all  candor,  to  reconcile  his  position  as  sub 
leader  of  the  opposition,  with  the    conviction 
that  will  be  forced  on  his  mind  of  the  worth 
lessness  of  his  chief!     There  is  one  point  fox 
characteristic  of  Gen.  McClellan,  and  too  much 
connected  with  my  own  operations,  for  me  t 
pass  by.     At  the  close  of  his  report  he  says  : 

"  The  brilliant  battle  of  Hanover  Court  Hous 
was  fought,  which  opened  the  way  for  the  Firs 
Corps  (then  forming  part  of  the  Army  of  the  Rap 
pahannock,)  with  the  aid  of  which,  had  it  come,  w 


hould  then  have  gone  into  the  enemy's  capital.    It 
ever  came!  " 

How  disingenious,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  this 
s.  The  First  Corps  of  the  Army  of  the  Poto- 
nac,  as  organized  by  him,  consisted  of  the 
hree  divisions  of  Franklin,  King  and  McCall. 
Of  these,  at  the  time  to  which  he  refers,  he  had 
ranklin  and  McCall.  He  had,  on  the  7th  of 
Fune,  assured  the  President  he  would  be  in 
erfect  readiness  to  move  forward  and  take 
lichmond  the  moment  McCall's  division 
eached  him — and  McCall  reached  him  on  the 
2th  and  13th.  On  the  14th  of  the  same  month 
le  was  still  asking  for  more  troops,  which  he 
nsisted  should  be  sent  to  him  by  water.  The 
roops  he  wanted  were  under  my  command  and 
near  Fredericksburg.  FromFredericksburg  to 
Richmond  it  is  about  58  miles,  about  the  dis- 
.ance  from  here  to  the  New  Almaden  mines ! 
The  country  was  the  same  over  which  subse- 
quently Grant  marched  his  army.  There  was 
hen  nothing  of  the  enemy  between  Gen. 
McClellan's  army  and  mine.  The  march 
would  not  require  for  my  forces  more  than  three 
days.  I  had  an  abundant  supply  of  wagons 
and  beef  cattle,  yet  Gen.  McClellan  would  not 
bear  of  my  marching  down  the  straight  open 
road,  but  insisted  my  troops  should  be  marched 
to  the  river-and  embarked  on  transports,  so  as 
to  come  in  his  rear  instead  of  on  his  right — to 
come  by  detachments  instead  of  in  a  body,  even 
when  he  knew  from  his  own  experience,  and 
was  reminded  in  the  most  pointed  manner  by 
the  President  that  it  would  take  three  times  as 
as  long.  He  ends  one  of  his  despatches  at  this 
time  with  this  remarkable  statement:  "If  I 
cannot  fully  control  all  his  (McDowell's)  troops, 
I  want  none  of  them,  but  would  prefer  to  fight 
the  battle  with  what  I  have,  and  let  others  be 
responsible  for  the  results." 

Let  it  be  understood  that  he  had  then  precisely 
the  control  of  McDowell's  troops  which  he  asked 
for ;  but  even  if  he  had  not,  is  it  not  rather  an  equi- 
vocal position  for  a  patriot  to  occupy,  to  be  willing, 
in  this  pert  manner,  to  throw  away  what  he  swore 
before  a  court,  to  be  a  certainty  of  taking  the  enemy's 
capital  and  crushing  the  rebellion,  because  the  Pres- 
ident, whose  orders  he  had  sworn  to  obey,  wished 
the  troops  should  go  to  him  in  the  most  expeditious 
manner. 

Why  was  this  ?  He  says  to  the  President :  "  The 
stake  is  too  great  to  allow  personal  conside'ations 
to  be  entertained ;  you  know  I  have  none."  He 
thanks  God  he  is  not  like  other  men ! 

The  simple,  plain,  unvarnished  truth,  I  have  been 
told  by  those  who  were  in  McClellan's  army  at  the 
time,  was  that  the  whole  affair  was  one  of  personal 
consideration.  He  wanted  my  troops  sent  to  him  in 
such  a  way  as  to  reinforce  his  partizans;  I  subse- 
quently found  that  McCall's  division  had  been  as- 
signed by  him  to  Gen.  Fitz  John  Porter. 

One  instance  more,  and  I  will  have  done.  The 
conduct  of  Gen.  McClellan  at  the  second  battle  of 
Bull  Run  has  been  represented  by  his  party  as  some- 


thing  noble,  patriotic  and  self-sacrificing  to  an  un- 
heard-of degree. 

That  on  this  occasion  he  was  disgraced  by  the 
Administration,  confined  at  Alexandria,  and  com 
pelled  for  hours  to  listen  to  the  distant  sound  of  the 
conflict,  and  when  the  army  in  front  was  defeated 
and  routed,  scattered,  disorganized,  disspirited,  and 
totally  incapable  of  making  a  successful  defence — 
he  was  sought  with  tearful  eyes,  arid  entreated  to 
save  the  capital,  which  he  magnanimously  consented 
to  do! 

He  protests  in  his  report  that  he  lost  time  in 
moving  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  from  the  Peninsula 
to  the  support  of  the  Army  of  Virginia ;  that  he 
left  nothing  undone  in  his  power  to  forward  supplies 
and  reinforcements  to  Gen.  Pope ! 

He  is,  I  suppose,  the  best  judge  of  what  he  was 
capable  of  doing.  If  so,  I  can  only  say  that  it 
amounted  to  but  little. 

The  whola  of  this  case  is  very  fully  given  in  Ray 
mond's  book  on  Lincoln's  Administration  and  in  the 
Congressional  documents — and  these  may  be  safely 
referred  to,  to  prove,  that,  instead  of  doing  anything 
to  send  reinforcements  or  supplies  to  Pope,  he  did 
just  the  reverse.  And  I  here  wish  to  assert  it  as  a 
fact,  which  you  can  see  yourselves  from  McClellan's 
own  reports — in  the  books  before  mentioned — that 
one  of  his  first  acts'  on  taking  charge  ot  the  duty  as- 
signed him  at  Alexandria,  was  to  countermand  the 
order  for  Cox's  brigade,  then  on  their  way  to  Pope, 
and  place  it  with  Franklin's  corps.  And  that  this 
corps — ordered  over  and  over  again,  in  the  most 
peremptory  manner,  to  move  by  forced  marches, 
and  reinforce  an  army  then  actually  engaged  in  a 
battle,  the  distant  sound  of  which  he  heard — was 
not  suffered  by  McClellan  to  join  Pope  till  after  Pope 
had  been  fighting  the  enemy  for  three  days,  and  he 
(McClellan)  had  succeeded  in  his  efforts  to  procure 
his  defeat. 

First  Cox's  command,  then  Franklin's  Corps — 
then  Sumner's,  and  then  others — all  withheld! 
Sumner  himself  testifies  that  had  he  been  ordered 
forward,  upon  landing  at  Alexandria  he  would  have 
been  in  the  second  battle  of  Bull  Run. 

I  will  not,  I  am  sure,  be  thought  by  any  one  who 
studies  the  testimony,  to  use  too  strong  language 
when  I  say  these  corps  were  all  withheld  on  the 
most  miserable,  flimsy  pretexts — such  pretexts  r.s 
would  have  caused  him  to  withhold  Kearney, 
Heintzelman,  and  Porter,  had  he  arrived  before  they 
marched. 

He  also  refused  to  send  forward  any  supplies  till 
Pope  should  send  his  troops— then  engaged  with 
the  enemy— back  to  escort  them !  I  This  when 
Banks'  wagon  train  was  coming  down  from  the 
front  without  any  molestation  whatever! 

One  fact  of  hid  conduct  on  this  occasion  should 
not  be  forgotten.  He  was  told  by  the  superinten- 
dent of  the  railroad— Gen.  Haupt — that  Gen.  Scam- 
mon  was  holding  Bull  Run  brlJge  with  1,500  men, 
and  needed  reinforcements.  Now,  this  is  a  case  in 
which  strategy  is  not  involved,  but  a  plain  simple 
question,  that  any  person  in  this  assembly  is  per- 
fectly competent  to  understand — an  officer  holding 
a  position  with  a  inferior  force,  and  within  a  few 
miles  of  a  large  body  of  his  comrades. 

The  following  ia  Haupt's  testimony  in  the  case : 


"  Question— -What  action  did  Gen.  McClellan  take 
upon  the  information  which  you  communicated? 

Answer — He  decided  that  it  would  not  be  safe  to 
send  an  expedit'on  to  reinforce  the  co  nmand  of  Col. 
Scammon  until  he  could  get  further  information  of 
the  number  and  position  of  the  enemy. 

Q. — Did  you  recommend  that  the  command  should 
be  reinforced  ? 

A. — I  was  very  anxious  that  it  should  be  either 
reinforced  or  relieved.  I  wished  also  to  bring  off  the 
remainder  of  Gen.  Taylor's  command,  and,  if  I  had 
not  found  Gen.  McCle'lan,  would  certainly  have 
sent  out  a  force  that  afternoon. 

Q. — Had  you  reason  to  believe  that  this  move- 
ment  cou'd  have  been  made  successfully? 

A. — I  thought  the  circumstances  were  such  as  to 
justify  spme  risk,  and  as  Gen.  McClellan  did  not 
seem  willing  to  send  a  force  for  the  reasons  as- 
signed, I  determined  to  assume  the  responsibility  of 
making  a  reconnoissance  on  the  following  morning, 
unless  positively  forbidden.  I  accordingly  sent  to 
Gen.  McClellan  the  following  telegram : 

AUGUST  27,  1862. 

I  propose  to  start  at  4  o'clock,  precisely,  a  wrecking  and  | 
construction  train,  bound  for  Bull  Run;  also,  a  forage  train 
and  subsistence  train.  It  is,  perhaps,  proper  that  two  hun- 
dred good  skirmishers  should  be  sent  with  the  trains,  who 
should  be  at  the  depot  at  Alexandria  before  4  A.  M.  to-morrow 
morning.  Gen.  Pope  will  oe  notified  by  courier  to-night  to 
have  his  wagons  ready  at  Sangster's  Station  by  daylight  to- 
morrow. If  the  troops  are  not  here  by  4  A.  M.  we  propose  to 
go  ahead  without  them.  H.  HATJPT. 

Maj.  Gen.  McClellan. 

No  reply  having  been  received  within  the  time  des- 
ignated. I  sent  out  the  train  !  I  cannot  speak  in  too 
strong  terms  of  the  zeal  and  courage  of  the  railway 
employes  and, of  the  telegraph  operators,  who,  with 
a  full  understanding  that  the  service  was  very  haz- 
ardous, volunteered  for  the  ocasion." 

****** 

Not  safe  to  reinforce  because  he  did  not  know  how 
great  was  the  danger !  and  then  neither  reinforcing 
nor  withdrawing  this  command,  but  leaving  it  to  iti 
fate! 

Fortunately,  the  indefatigable  Haupt,  without 
any  aid  from  the  military,  and  with  his  brave  corps 
of  civilians,  railroad  employes,  and  telegraph  opera- 
tors, did  what  the  General  did  not  feel  himself  au- 
thorized on  military  grounds  to  attempt! 

Haupt  further  testifies  to  the  fact  that  nearly  all 
the  information  given  to  the  Government  at  Wt  sh- 
ington,  during  this  battle,  was  given  by  civilians ! 
And  you  will  .'•ee  that  not  a  particle  was  obtained 
by  Gen.  McClellan,  though  he  had  under  his  con- 
trol nearly  40,000  men,  with  a  sufficiency  of  every- 
thing necessary  f  >r  the  purpose. 

The  animus  with  which  all  this  was  done  was 
not  left  in  doubt  even  by  his  own  reports.  You 
will  see  that  he  actually  suggests  to  the  President 
to  withhold  all  help  from  Pope,  and  to  leave  him — 
which  means  many  thousands  of  gallant  men — "  to 
get  out  of  his  scrape  as  best  he  can !"  This  on  the 
pretext  to  make  the  capital  secure ! 

Yet  when,  soon  afterward,  he,  McClellan,  was 
again  at  the  head  of  this  army  he  proposed  thus  to 
be  sacrificed,  he  says  (September  11,  1862):  "But 
even  if  Wa-hitigton  should  be  taken,  this  would  not 
bear  comparison  with  the  ruin  and  disasters  which 
would  follow  a  single  defeat  of  this"  his  "  army." 

When  he  had  charge  of  Washington  he  proposed 


10 


to  sacrifice  the  army ;  and  when  he  has  the  army, 
he  proposes  to  sacrifice  the  capital !  Yet  he  is  con- 
stantly protesting  he  has  no  personal  considerations ; 
that  high,  patriotic,  unselfish  and  disinterested 
motives  only  have  animated  him!  Yet  will  any 
one,  in  all  candor  say,  from  these  statements,  that 
he  has  not  given  ample  evidence  of  the  very  re- 
verse ? 

How  came  it  that  with  a  knowledge  of  his  con- 
duct on  this  occasion,  the  President  should  have  re- 
placed him  in  command  of  the  army  ?  It  was  on 
account  of  the  representations  made  to  him — that 
that  army  would  not  fight  under  any  one  else,  and 
that  he  must  accept  McClellan  or  the  enemy! 

I  was  at  boch  battles  of  Bull  Run.  What  I  did 
or  did  not  do  at  the  first,  is  of  no  consequence  in 
this  connection ;  that  matter  has  been  abundantly 
investigated  and  commented  on;  but  what  I  said  is 
of  consequence.  For  I  claim  to  have  given  the 
country  a  true  and  faithful  account  of  it — one  that 
has  never  been  gainsayed ;  and  I  claim  therefore  to 


be  believed  now  when,  in  reference  to  the  second,  I 
tell  you  that  those  representations  as  to  that  army 
being  routed,  disorganized  and  demoralized,  and  not 
willing  to  fight  under  any  one  the  Government 
might  assign  to  it,  are  false,  utterly  false  !  and  that 
personal  considerations  were  at  the  bottom  of  the 
whole  matter ;  and  it  was  on  personal  grounds,  and 
not  on  public  and  patriotic  ones,  that  McClellan 
WHS  at  this  time  forced  on  the  President. 

This  is  the  General  whom  the  opposition  wish  to 
take  the  place  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Mr.  Lincoln  is  con- 
fessedly not  a  military  man.  You  have  seen  how 
he  confides  in  and  sustains  those  whom  he  trusts. 
Whom  does  he  now  have  to  conduct  this  war?  who 
are  his  Lieutenants? 

Look  at  the  brilliant  campaigns  of  Vicksburg, 
Atlanta,  and  the  Shenandoah,  and  tell  me  if  you 
want  other  or  better  men  than  Grant,  than  Sher- 
man, than  Sheridan — ("No!  no!  no!")  Then  here 
I  rest  the  case  without  another  word  on  this  subject. 


SrEECH  OF  HOE  JOHN  COMESS, 


At  a  Mass  Meeting  of  Union  men,  held  at  Platt's 
Hall,  San  Francisco,  on  Tuesday  evening,  the  18th 
instant,  Senator  Conness  was  introduced  to  the  au- 
dience, and  spoke  as  follows: 

Mr.  Chairman,  ladies  and  fellow-citizens  of  San 
Fruncisco:  I  have  been  summoned  before  you  to- 
night by  the  inexorable  order  of  the  Union  State 
Central  Committee.  It  is  not,  fellow-citizens,  by 
even  a  wish  of  mine  that  I  appear  before  you,  and 
you  must  not  think  it  strange  that  I  say  this.  How- 
ever I  may  have  acquired  some  reputation  for  public 
speaking  by  reason  of  its  having  been  forced  upon 
me  in  conflicts  through  which  I  have  passed,  it  is 
not  my  forte.  I  fear  it.  I  fear  public  audiences, 
and  more  than  I  can  tell  you.  In  addition  to  that, 
fellow-citizens,  in  this  canvass  I  have  been  unfortu- 
nate enough  not  to  be  possessed  of  my  ordinary 
vigor,  and  I  have  been  advised  of  the  necessity  of 
husbanding  what  little  I  have,  in  order  that  in  the 
sphere  of  my  official  duties  I,  too,  may  contribute  to 
the  success  that  we  all  so  earnestly  contemplate — 
the  preservation  of  the  country,  of  liberty  and  free- 
dom in  America  and  the  whole  world.  [Applause.] 

It  has  been  said  by  some  that  there  is  a  luke- 
warmness  felt  by  me  in  this  contest.  Why,  fellow- 
citizens,  there  are  none  who  have  heads  to  think 
and  hearts  to  feel  who  can  possibly  be  lukewarm  in 
a  contest  such  as  the  one  before  us.  [Applause.] 
The  mightiest  stake  is  at  issue,  the  greatest  contest 
is  being  waged  that  was  ever  known  in  America. 
Heretofore,  for  generations  past,  since  our  country 
began,  all  questions,  no  matter  how  important  their 


character,  were  determined  by  the  popular  voice. 
We  are  now  to  determine  by  the  popular  vice  the 
great  question  of  who  shall  be  the  Chief  Magistrate 
of  this  nation  for  four  years  to  come;  and  by  and 
by,  in  addition  to  that,  we  are  to  determine  whether 
or  not  we  shall  continue  to  be  a  nation — whether  or 
not  the  United  States  of  America  shall  still  be  con- 
sidered, and  be  in  fact,  the  home  of  the  oppressed  of 
every  nation ;  the  home,  the  secure  home,  of  liberty. 
[Applause.]  But  while  this  civil  contest  is  going  on 
at  this  time,  war,  deadly  and  horrible  war,  is  car- 
ried on  upon  the  fields  of  this  country— a  war  in 
which  the  lands  and  homes  of  the  country  are  laid 
waste  and  her  sons  are  slaughtered  by  hundreds  of 
thousands.  We  have  thus  a  double  contest  inaug- 
urated against  us — one  of  the  most  important  civil 
contests  and  one  of  the  most  terrible  and  sanguin- 
ary conflicts  that  the  world  ever  saw. 

*Who  is  it  that  is  responsible  for  this  double  con- 
test? Who  is  it  that  has  invoked  this  terrible  war 
and  brought  it  upon  us?  la  part,  that  is  the  theme 
of  our  discussion  to-night.  And  I  submit  now  to 
this  audience,  to  you,  fellow-citizens,  to  every  man 
in  the  land  who  has  a  spark  of  reason  and  a  particle 
of  justice  in  his  composition — I  submit  to  all  the 
question  whether  there  was  cause  for  this  terrible 
war;  whether  we  might  not  have  gone  on  as  we 
had  gone  on  ever  since  the  nation  began  its  exist- 
ence, submitting  every  question  to  popular  .arbitra- 
ment, and  in  that  respect  commanding  the  admira- 
tion of  all  the  nations  of  Europe?  Until  this  war 
began,  no  matter  bow  fierce  our  contests  were,  no 
matter  how  strong  and  deep  our  convictions  were, 


11 


when  the  majority  decided,  the  great  body  of  the 
people  acquiesced  in  the  decision.  Then  we  were 
the  admiration  of  the  civilized  world ;  now,  we  have 
almost  become  its  sport. 

I  say  we  have  come  together  in  part  to  discuss, 
to-night,  and  determine  as  to  who  are  responsible 
for  this  terrible  change,  and  to  shape  our  actions 
accordingly.  No  ordinary  influence  could  have  pro- 
duced this  great  result,  this  dire  calamity.  It  must 
be  a  cause  or  causes  that  enter  deep  into  the  con- 
victions of  men.  It  must  be  a  cause  or  causes  that 
stirred  up  the  passions  of  men  to  their  deepest 
depths  and  have  aroused  them  to  the  exertion  of 
their  utmost  power.  What  was  it  ?  Some  States 
of  this  Union  professed  and  pretended  that  their 
rights  were  invaded — that  they  possessed  a  class  of 
property  guaranteed  to  them  by  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  which  another  part  of  the  country 
was  con«tantly  engaged  in  trying  to  wrest  from 
them.  That  was  their  assertion.  They  maintained 
that  assertion  in  various  forms  for  a  number  of 
years,  and  what  is  singular  and  remarkable  is,  that 
they  maintained  it  strongly  and  constantly  while 
they  as  constantly  held  the  power  of  the  nation  in 
their  own  hands.  They  invariably,  or  almost  in- 
variably, elected  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  nation. 
They  almost  invariably  had  Congressional  power. 
They  organized  the  Courts.  They  obtained  decis- 
ions ;  and  their  fellow-citizens  of  the  free  or  North- 
ern States  acquiesced  in  the  decisions  made.  If 
they  protested  civilly,  if  they  carried  their  protests 
into  discussion,  public  discussion,  complaint  was 
made  by  Southern  men  in  the  halls  of  Congress, 
and  on  the  stump  in  the  various  districts  and  States. 
Yet  the  protest  of  the  North,  at  the  best,  was  but 
the  expression  of  an  opinion,  based  on  the  nobleness 
of  nature  and  humanity,  against  human  slavery. 
[Applause.]  But  so  educated  had  the  people  be- 
come even  to  the  existence  and  toleration  of  slavery 
which  the  great  majority  of  them  hated  and  detested; 
so  educated,  I  say,  had  they  become,  to  acquiesce 
in  the  decision  of  the  majority,  that,  excepting  in 
the  rarest  instances — instances  so  rare  and  so  con- 
temptible by  the  measure  of  their  power,  as  to  be 
unworthy  of  notice — nothing  but  civil  discussion 
ever  arose  as  a  consequence  ef  any  decision.  But 
they  tulked  of  State  rights — the  men  of  the  South. 
What  State  rights  had  they  been  deprived  of?  As 
I  before  stated,  they  invariably  controlled  the  power 
of  the  Nation.  They  held  the  offices  of  the  Nation; 
they  filled  the  army,  they  filled  the  ranks  of  the 
navy.  To  such  an  extent  did  they  do  that,  that  it 
was  no  matter  whether  the  President  elected  was  a 
Northern  President  or  a  Southern  President ;  they 
alike  had  the  power,  and  wielded  it.  And  when 
they  inaugurated  this  terrible  war  upon  us  they 
controlled  the  Administration,  in  the  person,  aye, 
the  hated  and  detested  person  of  James  Buchanan. 
[Applause.]  They  had,  through  him,  filled  every 
embassy  that  we  sent  abroad.  There  was  no  court 
of  Europe  at  which  we  were  not  represented  either 
by  a  Southern  man,  like  Faulkner,  of  Virginia,  or  a 
baser  and  mojBe  detested  Northern  man,  like  Glaucey 
Jones,  of  Pennsylvania.  [Approbation.]  And 
they  were  not  idle  with  this  great  potent  agency. 
Let  me  tell  you,  my  fellow-citizens,  a  fact  that  is 
not  generally  and  popularly  known — and  I  state  it 
to  you  from  the  highest  source  of  intelligence — 


that  when  Mr.  Lincoln  took  the  office  of  President 
of  the  United  States,  in  1861,  the  education  of  every 
court  in  Europe,  aye,  and  in  South  America,  that 
was  of  the  slightest  political  consequence,  was  com- 
plete; having  been  carried  on  and  completed  by 
American  ministers.  They  had  been  taught  by 
those  ministers  that  our  country  and  Government 
were  at  an  end.  ["Shame".]  Yes,  it  is  a  shame, 
and  a  damning  proof  of  a  treason  early  hatched, 
and  thus  attempted,  in  the  most  fraudulent  and 
despicable  manner,  to  be  launched  against  a  gen- 
erous, a  magnanimous  and  a  noble  people.  [Cheers.] 

This  fact,  fellow-citizens,  accounts  for  a  most  re- 
markable circumstance — a  circumstance  entirely 
new  in  the  history  of  the  intercourse  of  nations, 
namely,  the  immediate  recognition  of  belligerent 
powers  in  this  bastard  Confederacy.  It  had  no 
sooner  sprung  into  existence  than  the  powerful  na- 
tions of  the  earth  recognized  them  as  our  equals, 
admitted  their  pirate  ships  into  their  ports  and  gave 
their  representatives  audiences.  This  circumstance 
is  accounted  for  by  the  fact  I  have  stated  to  you — 
that  they  had  been  told,  and  educated  to  believe, 
by  the  ministers  of  our  country,  that  our  nation  was 
at  an  end;  and  so  they  hurried  up  to  divide  the 
garments  of  Christ  between  them.  They  desired  to 
make  an  early  association  with  the  Southern  Con- 
federacy. They  clamored  and  strove,  each  with  the 
other,  for  early  treaties  and  bargains,  by  which  they 
could  gain  advantage ;  and  they  were  unwilling  to 
listen  to  the  declaration  of  our  Government  that  we 
could  maintain  it  intact. 

And  this  state  of  facts,  now  forming  a  part  of  the 
history  of  the  country,  exists,  while  those  blatant 
allies,  to  which  your  Chairman  referred,  of  the  trait- 
ors South,  now  talk  about  Democracy — of  organiz- 
ing what  they  call  Democracy — that  the  South  in 
arms  against  us  may  carry  out  their  damned  pur- 
pose of  destroying  our  country,  thus  pre-arranged  and 
predetermined  by  those  men  who  had  possession  of 
the  Government. 

I  need  not  say  what  is  so  oft  repeated,  that  a 
more  causeless  and  baseless  war  the  world  never 
knew.  [Cheers.]  Why,  upon  the  subject  of  slav- 
ery our  Government,  the  Republican  Administra- 
tion, the  Republican  Congress,  offered  to  do  every- 
thing. It  is  within  your  recollection  that  one  of  the 
very  first  acts  of  that  Congress  was  to  pass  an 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
which  should  put  it  out  of  the  power  of  the  Central 
Government  to  aflfe,ct  slavery  hereafter  in  any  State 
of  the  Union,  especially  disclaiming  the  exercise  of 
any  such  power.  That  amendment  came  to  our 
State  Capital  when  I  had  the  honor  of  a  seat  there 
as  a  representative.  It  had  the  name  of  William  H. 
Seward  [applause],  Secretary  of  State  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  attached  to  it.  I  gave  it  my 
vote.  And  I  tell  you,  fellow-citizens,  to-night,  that 
it  did  not  get  rny  vote  because  I  loved  slavery,  nor 
because  I  did  not  detest  it ;  but  it  got  my  vote  be- 
cause I  felt,  as  every  good  citizen  felt,  that  every 
reasonable  concession  should  be  made,  that  every 
reasonable  protest  should  be  hearkened  to,  in  order 
that  peace  and  unity  might  still  abide  with  us. 
[Cheers.]  That  Congress,  too,  although  the  politi- 
cal platform  on  which  a  majority  of  its  members 
were  elected  declared  in  favor  of  the  rig'ut  of  Con- 
gress to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  Territories — organ- 


12 


ized  Territories  on  what  we  call  the  principle  of 
popular  sovereignty,  and  thus  ceased  to  exercise  the 
power  it  claimed.  There  was  another  great  and 
liberal  act  on  the  part  of  that  party — on  the  part  of 
the  men  against  whom  the  South  launched  its  com- 
plaints, that  they  were  going  to  take  possession  of 
its  properly,  or  destroy  the  value  of  it,  going  to  ruin 
its  industry,  to  leave  it  without  State  rights  or  in- 
dependence. 

But  more  than  that,  fellow-citizens.  While,  after 
the  war  began  thus  causelessly  and  thus  basely,  the 
South  used  its  myriads  of  negroes  in  producing  the 
means,  and  the  only  means,  by  which  war  could  be 
made  by  the  people  of  the  South  against  us,  the 
Government  forebore  to  act  against  slavery  as  an 
institution  ;  and  it  was  not  until  a  very  large  body 
of  people,  an  immense  body  of  people,  demanded 
that  slavery  should  be  attacked,  because  it  was  a 
war  weapon  of  the  South,  that  the  President  of  the 
United  States  issued  his  great  Proclamation  of 
Emancipation,  [immense  applause]  which,  let  me  say 
to  you  now,  was  the  first  honest  word  officially 
spoken  by  America  to  the  people  of  the  civi  ized 
world  in  favor  of  the  rights  of  all  men.  [Great 
applause.]  We,  up  to  the  time  of  the  issuing  of 
that  proclamation,  the  enunciation  of  that  great 
edict,  had  denied  upon  all  occasions  any  intention  to 
interfere  wiih  slavery.  It  had  been  announced,  and 
steadily  insisted  upon,  by  the  President,  by  the 
Secretary  of  State,  by  a  solemn  resolution  of  our 
Congress  in  civil  convocation,  that  the  paramount — 
nay,  the  great,  the  only  object  of  maintaining  the 
war  against  those  that  made  war  upon  us,  was 
simply  and  singly  to  preserve  the  Union,  and  to  do 
nothing  else.  And  our  President  went  so  far,  at  a 
very  late  period,  as  to  declare  that  if,  to  preserve 
the  Union,  it  was  necessary  to  abolish  slavery,  he 
would  abolish  it  [cheers ;]  but  if,  to  preserve  the 
Union,  it  was  necessary  to  preserve  slavery,  he 
would  preserve  it.  [Applause.]  In  other  words, 
the  preservation  of  the  Union  was  declared  by  us, 
prior  to  the  great  proclamation,  as  the  paramount 
and  great  object  of  the  American  people  in  the  con- 
test. [Cheers.] 

There  is  no  doubt,  I  think,  that  if  a  vote  .had 
been  taken  at  any  time  before  or  at  the  beginning  of 
the  contest  upon  the  question,  Shall  we  have  war 
without  seeing  its  end  or  termination,  and  attempt 
to  abandon  e  avery  as  a  system  in  the  Union,  or 
shall  we  have  peace  and  Union?  a  majority  would 
have  decided  in  favor  of  the  latter  proposition.  But, 
fellow-citizens,  the  time  finally  came  when  patience 
•ceased  to  be  a  virtue,  when  forbearance  was  misin- 
terpreted or  denominated  cowardice,  and  when  the 
rfatal  hand  of  foreign  intervention  would  not  have 
ibeen  stayed  had  not  the  President,  representing  the 
American  pe  >ple,  the  loyal,  humane,  enlightened 
American  people,  issued  the  great  edict  telling  the 
people  of  the  world  that  we  are  now  for  the  Union 
without  slavery  [great  applause] ;  that  there  can  be 
no  peace  with  slavey.  [Applause.]  Slavery  was 
.furnishing  our  enemy  with  power — building  his  for- 
tifications, producing  his  supplies,  his  forage,  his 
subsistence,  and  was  corrupting  the  minds  of  his 
people  and  demoralizing  the  minds  of  a  part  of  ours, 
.and  the  Chief  Magistrate  resolved  to  strike  it  down 
May  the  Lord  God  bless  him  for  that !  [Vociferous 
and  repeattd  applause]. 


When  the  war  was  begun  upon  ua,  a  set  of  men 
in  this  State,  that  we  and  all  loyal  men  call  and 
know  as  Secessionists,  opposed  what  they  called  co- 
ercion. They  echoed  the  feeble  and  traitor  voice  of 
the  traitor  President  who  had  said  that  there  is  no 
power  in  the  Constitution  to  make  war  upon  a  State. 
States  could  make  war  upon  States  and  upon  the 
National  Government,  and  upon  libetty  ;  but  there 
was  no  power  in  the  Government  to  make  war  upon 
a  State  !  The  pettifogging  dishonesty  of  that  man, 
in  cooking  up  and  presenting  that  proposition  in 
that  light,  cannot  be  contemplated  without  ex- 
citing the  uttermost  contempt.  Why  did  he  get  up 
a  false  issue  of  that  kind,  that  the  National  arm 
might  be  paralyzed?  Why  did  not  the  base,  cow- 
ardly man  take  his  position  then  side  by  side,  as 
his  false  Ministers  had  done — as  his  Cabinet  had 
done,  with  the  leaders  of  the  rebellion,  and  aid  to 
the  full  and  entire  extent  of  his  power  the  dismem- 
berment of  the  Union  ?  Why,  if  there  can  be  any 
such  thing  as  an  honest  devil,  an  honest  devil  is 
more  respectable  [applause  and  laughter]  than  a 
cowardly,  hypocritical,  deceitful  devil.  [Cheers.] 
I  don't  know  that  there  are  degrees  of  this  kind, 
but  it  is  enough  to  say,  that  in  that  false  arid  de- 
ceitful issue  presented  by  him  he  exhibited  himself 
in  the  meanest  aspect  of  them  all.  [Applause  ] 

We  call  them  Secessionists,  I  said.  You  all  re- 
member the  session  of  the  Legislature  of  this  State 
of  1861.  Sidney  Johnson  was  in  command  of  your 
forces  here,  and  in  the  State  Library  of  this  state 
and  in  the  Supreme  Court  room  there  were  nightly 
meetings  of  those  reptiles  to  determine  when  blood 
should  begin  to  flow,  when  civil  war  -should  be 
organized  in  California,  as  it  had  been  organized  in 
Maryland,  in  Kentucky,  in  Missouri  and  in  Tennes- 
see. They  scarcely  called  themselves  at  that  time 
by  the  somfwhat  respectable,  certainly  once  respect- 
able, certainly  theoretically  grand,  name  of  Demo- 
crats. Why,  there  was  not  a  loyal  man  in  the  State 
who  had  been  a  Democrat  that  would  allow  fellow- 
ship with  them.  [Applause.]  They  call  themselves 
Democrats  now.  What  is  democracy  ?  Is  it  not 
that  scheme  of  government  which  proposes  to  confer 
rights  alike  upon  you  and  upon  me  ?  Is  it  not  that 
scheme  of  government  that  proposes  the  greatest 
extent  of  civil  rights  to  mankind  consistent  with 
civil  order  ?  [Cheer?.]  If  it  is  not  that,  it  is  not 
worth  much,  and  its  votaries,  whatever  honest  vota- 
ries it  ever  had,  have  been  miserably  deceived.  The 
men  who  are  now  haranguing  the  multitudes  and 
calling  themselves  Democrats  did  not  admit  then 
that  those  original  Secessionists  were  Democrats; 
nay,  they  were  opposed  at  that  time  to  being  known 
themselves  as  Democrats— men  like  Eugene  Cas- 
serly.  After  the  Legislature  of  1861  had  >tood  up 
nobly  to  the  cause  of  the  Union,  and  the  minds  of 
the  people  of  the  State  were  aroused,  and  it  was 
palpable  that  the  Union  people  would  sweep  the 
State  by  an  immense  majority,  what  were  Casserly 
and  Hoge,  and  others  like  them,  doing  ?  I  will  tell 
you  what  they  were  doing ;  for  I  know  perhaps 
more  intimately  than  the  great  body^ol  the  people 
at  large.  I  sat  in  the  office  of  Eugene  Cas-eily,  in 
this  city,  attending  a  meeting  of  what  was  then  de- 
nominated the  Union  Democratic  State  Central 
Committee,  and  read  (I  confess  it)  admiringly  the 
product  of  bis  pen,  in  the  shape  of  resolutions  to  be 


13 


Subrnitted  to  that  Committee,  in  which  he  denounced 
all  party.  Those  resolutions  were  all  written  by 
him— every  line,  every  word;  every  punctuation 
mark  was  made  by  him  ;  and  they  were  presented 
to  the  Committee,  by  a  traitor  named  White,  who  is 
now  upon  the  secession  electoral  ticket  of  this  State. 
[Cheers.]  I  have  here,  thanks  to  the  Sacramento 
Union,  which  keeps  an  exact  record  of  the  times 
[applau-e],  the  resolutions  as  they  came  from  the 
pen  of  Casserly.  I  will  only  trouble  the  meeting 
and  c  >nsume  your  time  by  reading  a  very  small 
portion  of  them  ["Read  them  all,"  "Read  them 
all,"J  to  show  you  the  drift  of  the  mind  of  the  man 
at  that  time:  and  then  I  will,  perhaps,  attempt  to 
give  you  somp  of  the  reasons  for  that  drift.  These 
are  the  resolutions  before  they  were  amended  by 
the  State  Central  Committee  to  which  they  were 
presented,  and  as  they  came  from  Casserly's  pen  : 

"  W  HEREAB,  The  Democratic  party  has  ever  been  the  party 
of  fealty  to  free  government  and  fraternal  devotion  to  the 
rights  of  the  States  of  the  Union,  and  of  unwavering  fidelity 
to  the  laws,  the  Constitution,  the  Union  and  the  country — 
ready  to  maintain  them  by  all  proper  means  and  at  every 
sacrifice; 

"  And,  whereas,  The  country  is  now  defending  itself 
against  a  war  without  justih'cation  or  decent  excuse,  waged 
upon  it  by  c  rtain  seceded  States,  which  is  manifestly  a  war 
for  the  invasion  of  our  National  Capital ;  for  the  overthrow  of 
our  National  Government ;  the  oppression  of  the  loyal  States; 
the  Biilijugatiou  of  the  Union  ;  a  war  to  humble  in  the  dust 
our  National  flag;  to  wrench  from  the  American  people  their 
constitutional  rights  of  determining  for  themselves  their  own 
policy,  foreign  and  domestic,  and  to  blot  them  out  from  the 
class  of  the  great  Powers  of  the  world ; 

"And,  whereas,  Such  war,  so  aggressive  in  its  character 
and  so  deadly  in  its  purposes,  forces  upon  the  country  an 
issue  which  <  an  be  met  but  in  one  way  by  any  people  having 
the  common  instinct  of  self-preservation,  or  worthy  of  an 
existence  as  a  nation; 

"  Therefore  be  it  unanimously  resolved  by  this  Committee, 

"1.  That  at  this  time,  when  the  country  is  resisting  with 
all  its  miy;ht  a  war  of  invasion  and  destruction,  indifference 
is  impossible  to  the  patriot,  and  neutrality  is  cowardice,  if 
not  premeditated  disloyalty."  [Applause.] 

That  is  a  pretty  good  resolution.     [Applause.] 

"2.  That  the  people  of  California  in  the  past  have  been 
most  anxious  for  peace  throughout  the  land,  and  will  hail 
with  joy  an  honorable  adjustment  in  the  future ;  at  the  same 
time  they  are,  above  all  things,  for  the  Union,  the  country 
and  the  fbtg  against  all  assailants — no  matter  who  they 
are,  whence  they  come  or  with  what  power  armed. 

"3.  That  this  is  the  great  crisis  of  the  American  nation 
and  name,  our  State  will  always,  as  heretofore,  faithfully  dis- 
charge her  constitutional  obligations  to  the  Union  and  the 
Federal  Government,  and,  as  in  duty  bound,  will  earnestly 
sustain  the  constituted  authorities  at  Washington  in  all 
measures  necessary  to  defend  and  protect  either  against  this 
most  unjustifiable  and  unnatural  war." 

The  f  urth  relates  simply  to  steamships.  I  will 
pass  that. 

"6.  Thiit  all  former  partisan  differences  are  lost  in  the 
present  overwhelming  crisis;  and  he  who  would  seek,  by 
reviving  thorn,  to  distract  the  people,  or  to  wrest  from  their 
honest  and  patriotic  devotion  some  sordid  partisan  advantage, 
is  not  true  to  the  country  nor  worthy  of  the  name  of  Ameri- 
can citizen  [Immense  applause.] 

"  6.  '1  hat  as  Californians,  we  appeal  to  the  whole  people  of 
California," — not  to  any  party — '•  but  without  distinction  of 
party  or  reference  to  partisan  issues,  to  stand  with  us  by  our 
country  and  our  flag,  that  all  may  know  that  the  great  Union 
party  of  California  is  the  overpowering  majority  of  her  citi- 
zens. [Applause.] 

"7.  That  with  these  views  we  cordially  invite  all  patriotic 
men,  who  hold  these  sentiments,  to  meet  in  Grand  Mass  Con- 
vention — not  Df  mocratic  Convention — of  the  State  at  Sacra- 
mento, on  the  4th  day  of  July  next,  at  twelve  o'clock,  to 
nominate  candidates  to  be  supported  at  the  ensuing  election; 
and  we  recommend  in  the  election  of  delegates,  that  the  only 
test  be  approval  of  these  resolutions  and  willingness  to  sup- 
port the  candidates  nominated." 


Notv,  fellow-citizens,  I  was  a  member  of  the  Com- 
mittee that  considered  those  resolutions.  Mjr  name 
stands  at  the  bottom  of  a  report  of  the  sub-commit- 
tee to  whom  they  were  referred,  reporting  them 
tack  unanimously  for  adoption  to  the  committee. 
"We  desired  then,  C'asserly  desired— he  professed  to 
desire — an  abandonment  of  party.  That  was  the 
temper  of  the  times ;  and,  let  me  say,  it  was  the 
only  avenue  to  power.  But  was  Mr.  Casserly  at 
that  time  the  advocate  of  those  resolutions  because 
they  were  true,  or  was  it  because  he  deemed  them 
the  true  means  and  only  avenue  to  power?  We 
went  into  the  committee  with  the  resolutions.  There 
was  a  majority  there  to  strike  out  words  here  and 
there  and  insert  partisan  words  in  their  places. 
This  was  against  the  wish  of  Mr.  Casserly.  It  was 
against  the  wish,  as  I  believed  then,  of  the  true 
men  in  that  committee  and  in  the  State.  But  they 
were  so  amended.  I  went  back  to  Sacramento,  to- 
the  Capital,  where  the  Legislature  was  still  in  ses- 
sion, and  within  a  week  I  discovered  that  Eugene 
Casserly  had  concocted  those  resolutions  to  make- 
himself  Governor  of  California.  [Cheers.]  Fellow- 
citizens,  I  tell  you  to-night  from  this  stand  that  that 
was  the  secret  of  my  candidacy  in  1861.  [Ap- 
plause.] When  I  found  beyond  any  controversy 
that  Mr.  Casserly  was  in  league,  as  he  was  at  that- 
time,  with  men  that  I  believed  to  be  false  to  the- 
country,  I  determined,  for  one,  that  if  any  effort  of 
mine  could  prevent  it,  the  power  of  the  people  of 
California  should  never  be  vested  in  his  hands.- 
[Great  applause.]  The  contest  went  on.  It  was  a 
remarkable  one,  and  Casserly  was  beatea  in  the 
popular  Convention  of  the  party,  and  he  did  not 
become  Governor.  [Laughter  and  applause.]  You1 
can  now  see  by  his  present  course  how  basely  he- 
would  have  betrayed  the  Union  men  of  California. 
He  stands  to-day  more  responsible  than  any  citizen- 
of  this  State  for  the  unpatriotic — I  undertake  to  say 
it,  the  unpatriotic — position  of  a  large  portion  of  the- 
Irish  people  of  California  [applause] — a  people  who- 
love  liberty  by  instinct — [cheers] — with  whom  love- 
of  freedom  is  a  passion,  but  who,  unfortunately  <foiy 
themselves,  have  too  little  learned  from  their  teach- 
ers at  home  and  abroad  the  value  of  individual', 
judgment,  and  who  are  thus  led  off  by  false  and1" 
heartless  teachers  and  traitors  like  these.  .  [Tre-4 
mendous  and  long  continued  applause.]  I  pass  over 
and  by  the  ascent  of  that  man  into  my  room  at  the-; 
Orleans  Hotel  at  Sacramento  and  the  presentations 
of  his  hand  voluntarily;  I  rarely  seek  the  hand  of  a- 
Judas — [cheers]— with  the  assurance  that  he  would* 
support  me,  who  had  received  the  nomination.  I  passr 
that  over,  as  well  as  subsequent  acts  of  antagonism 
and  opposition  to  the  candidate  nominated  in  opposi- 
tion to  me.  They  cut  no  figure  in  this  contest.  Per- 
haps it  was  well  that  the  people  chose  Leland  Stan- 
ford as  Governor.  [Applause.]  It  may  be  that  if 
I  had  been  chosen  1  too  would  have  been  false  to> 
liberty.  [  "  No !  "  "  No !  »  "  No !  "  ]  But,  fellow- 
citizens,  my  words  are  on  record  on  that  point. 
After  I  had  received  the  nomination  for  Governor, 
and  Leland  Stanford  was  nominated,  I  met  him  in 
the  Orleans  Hotel  in  Sacramento,  and  I  said  to  him 
in  these  words :  "  Governor,  we  are  both  nominated 
for  the  office  of  Governor.  One  of  us,  in  my  opin- 
ion, must  be  elected.  I  don't  know  what  your 


14 


course  will  be  if  you  are  elected,  but  I  will  tell  you 
what  mine  will  be:  Believing  it  to  be  the  first  ne- 
cessity,  a  national  necessity  above  and  beyond  all 
party,  I  shall,  if  I  get  the  power  of  the  State,  under- 
take at  once  to  organize  a  Union  party  in  Califor- 
nia; and  if  any  partisan  of  mine  shall  put  himself  in 
my  way  in  that  undertaking  I  will  cut  him  off  at 
the  knees."  [Great  cheering.]  If  Casserly  had 
been  elected  I  don't  think  he  would  have  swung 
his  political  scythe  among  the  men  who  would  stand 
in  the  way  of  organizing  a  Union  party.  No.  Short- 
ly after  his  defeat  before  the  Convention  his  com- 
mon language  was,  as  this  great  contest  progressed, 
expressions  of  grief  for  what  they  call  their  South- 
ern brethren — that  now  he  was  in  favor  of  estab- 
lishing slavery  in  every  free  State.  ["Nary  time."] 
Such  is  one  of  the  men  who  undertake  to  teach, 
to  govern,  to  reign,  to  control  the  Irish  heart  of  Cal- 
ifornia. 0  God  1  0  God  I  in  Thy  mercy  look  down 
and  act  upon  this  people  I  Take  them  from  out  the 
hands  ot  these  vile  teachers  and  make  them  what 
Thou  iutendest  them  to  be,  advocates  and  apostlea 
of  liberty  and  freedom !  [Tremendous  applause.] 
"Where,  I  ask,  and  when,  out  of  the  republic,  and 
before  they  came  into  it,  did  they,  the  Irish,  find 
their  education  against  freedom  to  the  negro?  Why, 
I  undertake  to  say,  there  is  none  of  it  in  the  land 
from  which  thoy  have  come.  [Cheers.]  O'Connell 
denounced  it.  The  inspiration  of  the  greatest  bard 
of  the  country  was  directed  against  it,  and  he  sang 
against  it  in  noble  strains  in  the  first  and  only  visit 
that  the  lamented  Moore  made  to  America.  [Ap- 
plause.] He  could  not  understand,  great  soul  that 
he  was,  he  could  not  understand  how  a  people  pro- 
fessing liberty  and  freedom,  enjoying  it  for  them- 
selves, and  stand  by,  and,  by  statute,  by  custom,  by 
habit,  by  daily  observation,  see  children  produced 
as  beasts  are  for  sale  in  the  market,  sold  from  the 
public  block  to  the  highest  bidder.  He  could  not 
not  und  rstand  it.  [Cheers.]  And,  0,  think  of 
that  people  following  the  Casserlys  and  turning 
their  backs  to  the  O'Connells  and  the  Moores  1 
[Applause.]  A  base,  degraded,  bleared  sheet,  pre- 
tending to  be  a  Catholic  organ,  yclept  the  Monitor, 
says  I  have  no  right  to  talk  to  Irishmen.  Well, 
fellow-citizens,  it  never  has  been  my  habit  to  clas-  j 
sify  society  anwhere.  [Applause.]  If  Irishmen  | 
who  take  the  obligations  of  citizens  upon  them- 
selves in  this  great  republic  are  not  by  that  and  in 
that  made  Americans,  they  are  the  basest  creatures 
that  ever  saw  the  light.  [Vociferous  and  long  con- 
tinued applanse.]  If  they  desire,  or  their  instincts 
teach  them,  to  look  back  to  their  native  land,  to 
bring  in  review  to  their  minds  the  places  where 
they  played,  the  brooks  by  which  they  strayed,  the 
churches  in  which  they  assembled,  the  fireside  that 
they  adorned,  perhaps— they  may  do  all  that;  yet 
beyond  that  and  above  it,  it  is  a  high,  a  glorious 
privilege  to  each  of  them  to  be  ennobled  by  being 
made  an  American  citizen.  [Applause.]  A  great 
American  who,  having  seen  much  of  his  country, 
some  years  ago,  perhaps  a  quarter  of  a  century 
now,  traveled  extensively  in  Europe ;  his  position 
in  society  gave  him  access  to  the  highest  circles  on 
the  continent  of  Europe ;  he  was  received  at  the 
courts,  and  by  the  statesmen,  and  by  the  divines  of 
those  countries  he  visited.  I  allude  to  the  now  ven- 
erable and  distinguished  Orville  Elwell — Rev.  Or- 


ville  Elwell — now  residing  at  the  capital,  and  now 
a  sound  and  true  Union  man.  [Cheers.]  On  his 
return,  he  wrote  what  he  saw,  and  I  remember  a 
simple  passage  in  his  book.  It  was  entitled,  I 
think  the  book  was,  "The  Old  World  and  the 
New."  He  said:  "I  have  been  in  the  halls  of  en- 
throned monarchs,  but  I  was  proud  that  I  was  an 
American  citizen."  [Applause.]  Yes,  fellow  citi- 
zens, there  was  a  time  when  the  panoply  of  Amer- 
ican citizenship  spread  as  broad  and  ample  a  shield 
over  a  citizen  of  the  repnblic,  as  Roman  citizenship 
ever  spread  over  a  son  of  the  Eternal  City.  There 
came  a  time  again,  under  the  administration  of  one 
James  Buchanan,  when  the  ministers  of  the  repub- 
lic taught  abroad  that  there  was  an  end  of  Ameri- 
can citizenship  and  of  the  groat  republic.  There  is 
a  time  now,  when  all  the  manhood,  all  the  nobility, 
all  the  courage,  cemented  and  made  invincible  by- 
right  and  patriotism,  nerves  the  sonl  to  say  that  the 
republic  shall  be  glorious  again.  [Applause.] 

Every  subterfuge  that  meanness  could  suggest, 
that  cowardice  could  invent,  that  treason,  dark  and 
foul,  could  spawn  forth,  has  been  exercised  to  dis- 
cover excuses  and  reasons  for  opposing  this  war. 
First  they  were  against  coercion.  There  was  no 
power  to  make  war  upon  a  State.  You  could  not 
maintain  the  Union  by  force.  The  simple  proposi- 
tion that  the  Government  could  only  live  among 
any  people  by  two  simple  principles — by  the  love 
the  people  bear  for  it  or  the  fear  that  it  imparts  to 
objectors — was  denied.  They  would  have  us  under- 
stand that  that  simple  proposition  was  not  true  and 
well  understood,  and  that  when  any  contemptible 
fragment  of  the  Nation  saw  fit  to  rise  up  in  opposi- 
tion and  rebellion,  we  had  but  to  ground  our  arms 
and  become,  as  I  said  before,  the  sport  of  the 
world.  To  that  end  when  we  be»an  to  employ 
negroes  as  laborers  in  building  fortifications,  they 
protested  that  it  must  not  be  done.  It  prevented, 
they  said,  poor  white  men  from  getting  employment! 
Oh,  what  a  prostitution  of  the  instincts  ot  generos- 
ity !  Next,  they  should  not  be  employed  as  sol- 
diers. That  passed  away,  and  then  they  must  not 
be  paid  as  other  soldiers  were  paid.  Next  they 
were  opposed  to  the  draft.  Then  that  particular 
portion  of  the  draft  law  called  and  known  as  the 
three  hundred  dollar  clause  was  against  the  poor 
man,  they  said,  and  they  were  opposed  to  it  on  that 
account.  Well,  in  Congress  we  proposed  to  repeal 
that  clause,  and  every  Copperhead  in  the  Senate 
voted  against  the  repeal.  [Laughter  and  cheers.] 
Why  ?  Because  they  were  opposed  to  the  raising 
of  soldiers.  That  was  it.  They  fomented  and  in- 
vented every  species  of  opposition  against  this  war, 
and  now  they  are  for  peace. 

Now,  fellow-citizens,  for  one  moment  let  me  give 
you  a  glance,  or  glance  yourselves,  at  the  class  of 
men  in  this  State,  in  your  midst,  who  are  for  peace. 
Just  think  of  those  Ki rights  that  are  now  traveling 
on  the  mountain  roads,  putting  pistols  at  the  head 
of  every  traveler  aud  demanding  his  money  or  his 
life — think  of  the  men  who  went  around  through 
this  State  for  ten  years  or  more,  like  traveling  arse- 
nals, bestrung  with  deadly  weapons,  and  drawing 
them  upon  their  superiors,  destroying  our  noblest 
men  and  putting  them  to  death,  establishing  a 
bloody  and  terrible  code  which  made,  as  the  lament- 
ed Baker  said,  "the  mere  trick  of  the  weapon 


15 


superior  to  the  noblest  cause  and  the  truest  cour- 
age." [Applause.]  Just  think  of  those  men  cry- 
ing *'  Peace  1"  Just  think  of  their  becoming  mis- 
sionaries of  peace  and  apostles  of  civilization  I 
[Cheers  and  laughter.]  If  they  would  only  now 
perform  one  office  I  don't  know  but  I  would  forgive 
them  a  great  many  sins  of  the  past.  If  they  would, 
in  their  wretched  agony,  as  their  power  has  passed 
away,  and  as  their  ordinary  means  of  filching  a  liv- 
ing from  the  community  illegitimately  has  passed 
away  or  is  passing  away — if  they  would  but  turn 
about  and'  use  their  arsenals  upon  the  Casserlys, 
the  doughfaces  and  dirteaters  of  the  North  [great 
applause]  I  don't  know  but  I  would  forgive  them  a 
part  of  their  former  wrongs  and  misdeeds.  Thev 
would  rid  us  of  the  meanest,  the  most  despicable 
and  lecherous  crew  that  ever  disgraced  our  country. 
[Laughter  and  cheers.]  Why  they  stand  by  and 
see  the  proxies  of  the  enemies  of  the  country  organ- 
izing in  the  Union  in  a  raid  against  New  England — 
making  a  plot  by  which  New  England  is  to  be  set 
off,  the  West  is  to  be  made  another  Confederacy, 
the  Middle  States  another,  so  that  Jeff,  may  have 
his  way  ;  and  as  an  excuse,  too,  and  pretense  for 
all,  Cox  of  Ohio,  known  as  Sunset  Cox,  and  Cas- 
serly  agree  that  the  great  crime  of  New  England  is 
that  her  people  mix  morals  with  their  politics. 
[Laughter  and  applause.]  They  want  politics  with- 
out morals.  [Laughter.]  Well,  they  have  got  it. 
[Vociferous  cheers  and  laughter.]  They  have  quit 
their  raid  on  New  England.  Her  granite  rocks  and 
her  hearts  of  steel  have  resisted  their  deadly  and 
contemptible  shafts,  and  she  stands  to-day  one  of 
the  proudest  and  most  peerless  parts  of  the  world. 
[Cheers.]  The  West,  the  noble  West — her  sturdy 
and  stalwart  sons  have  left  their  fields,  have  left 
their  shops,  and  have  thundered  along  the  Missis- 
sippi and  pushed  the  current  into  the  sea.  [Ap 
plause.]  The  great  Central  States — take  Indiana 
from  the  West,  and  the  noble  Buckeye  State  and 
the  Keystone  of  the  arch — have  recently  spoken  in 
the  night  of  the  Republic's  gloom,  and  they  sing  a 
hymn  to  liberty.  [Cheers.] 

But  they  say  the  war  has  been  reduced  to  a  con- 
test for  the  abolition  of  slavery.  0 1  great  God, 
shall  it  be  said,  can  it  be  maintained  to-day,  eighty 
years  after  the  organization  of  this  Republic,  after 
eighty  years  of  teaching,  first  by  the  fathers  and 
then  by  every  good  and  great  man  along  the  line  to 
the  present  period,  that,  to  tell  the  world  that  we 
will  rise  and  remove  the  damning  stain  is  a  crime ! 
[Cheers.]  Ignorant  and  untaught  men  sometimes 
imagine  that  if  negroes  get  their  freedom,  that  is, 
if  they  have  a  right  to  themselves  and  to  the  profits 
of  their  labor,  that  they  will  be  encroached  upon. 
Do  they  not  know  that  they  never  can  be  elevated, 
that  they  never  can  rise,  that  capital  has  its  foot  and 
its  heels  upon  labor  as  long  as  such  a  mill-stone 
weight  as  slavery  hangs  around  the  neck  of  labor? 
[Applause.]  If  there  be  one  class  who,  above  an- 
other, ought  to  sing  peans  to  .the  rising  star  of 
liberty  in  the  land,  it  is  the  men  who  toil  and  sweat 
in  daily  labor.  [Cheers.] 

I  don't  know,  fellow-citfoens,  that  I  should  close 
tnis  brief  and  somewhat  irregular  address  without 
alluding,  and  I  hope  that  you  will  pardon  me  for  it, 
to  the  little  intimations  made  by  some  of  our  papers 
that  the  enlightened,  honest  and  patriotic  man  who 


stands  at  the  head  of  this  Government  and  myself, 
n  my  humble  capacity,  have  disagreements.  Why, 
ellow-citizens,  I  have  stood  day  by  day  and  night 
by  night  giving  all  that  I  had  and  all  that  I  could 
think  and  feel  to  build  him  up  and  make  him 
stronger.  [Immense  applause.]  How  ridiculous 
now  that  any  man  shall  be  found  professing  to  be  a 
Unii:n  man  who  shall  talk  about  this  man  or  that 
who  reaches  a  high  public  station,  and  has  one 
spark  of  the  light  that  fits  him  for  it.  as  thinking  of 
mere  groveling  conditions,  and  not  giving  himself, 
whatever  there  is  of  him,  be  it  little  or  much,  to  the 
great  cause  of  American  liberty  1  [Cheers.]  The 
President  with  me  never  sinks  the  President  in  the 
Senator,  and  it  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  say  to 
those  who  know  me  that  to  him  the  Senator  is 
never,  has  never  been  and  never  will  be  sunk  in 
the  President.  [Cheers.]  We  each,  in  our  sphere, 
stand  by  each  other  through  this  great  conflict. 
[Cheers.]  We  stand  by  you,  the  great  Union  peo- 
ple, and  you  stand  by  us.  [Deafening  applause, 
renewed  again  and  again.]  In  that,  like  the  Union, 
I  trust  and  religiously  believe,  we  will  be  one  and 
indivisible.  [Applause.]  Otherwise,  divide,  disa- 
gree, or  stand  by  in  a  false  or  fancied  security,  and 
let  these  creatures  elect  the  man  that  they  have 
proposed,  and  I  would  not  give  this  piece  of  paper 
that  I  hold  in  my  hand  for  the  great  American  Re- 
public. [Cheers.]  I  have  passed  days  and  nights, 
and  weeks  and  months,  in  agonizing  toil  and  mental 
sufferings  because  of  the  scenes,  and  acts,  and  facts 
transpiring  around  me.  I  do  not  upon  every  occa- 
sion seek  to  emblazon  them  all.  War  has  its  great 
horrors  We  understand  it  makes  no  cause  better 
to  constantly  present  them.  Leave  that  cowardly 
office  to  the  base  traitors  who  would  make  capital 
out  of  it  against  their  country.  We  know  that 
many  brave  men  must  fall.  We  know  that  no  such 
cause  as  ours  was  ever  won  but  by  the  consumption 
of  humanity  by  the  great  Moloch.  It  should  be  our 
manly  part  to  realize  these  principles,  and  realizing 
them,  allow  them  to  go  on  with  steady  tread  to  the 
consummation  of  the  great  gl  ry.  [Cheers.] 

From  the  condition  thut  I  have  described  of  our 
foreign  affairs  let  me  say  it  to  you  now,  for  it  can 
be  stated  publicly — we  are  now  in  security  and  we 
can  state  it — from  the  condition  of  things  not  more 
than  two  years  since,  less  than  that  time,  when  we 
had  not  taught  the  nations  of  the  world  that  the 
teachings  they  had  received  from  traitor  Ministers 
were  not  true  and  that  the  nation  would  certainly 
live — from  that  condition  of  things  our  foreign  policy 
has  been  brought  by  the  wise  man  who  stands  at 
the  head  of  the  Department  of  State  [applause],  so 
that  we  are  oftener  consulted  to-day  by  foreign  na- 
tions in  their  disputes  than  they  consult  each  other 
concerning  our  troubles.  [Applause.]  And  the 
War  Department  is  presided  over  by  a  m;m  of  in- 
tegrity, decision,  nerve — a  man  by  whose  dexterity 
and  courage  and  prescience  of  judgment  the  mighty 
armies  of  the  Republic  are  hurled  against  the  ene- 
my. [Cheers.]  I  cannot  close  this  address  with- 
out saying  to  you,  fellow-citizens  ^nd  Union  men  of 
California,  when  this  great  battle  shall  have  been 
fought  and  the  great  national  victory  won,  there 
will  be  no  single  man  in  America  entitled  to  more 
unqualified  praise  than  Edwin  M.  Stan  ton.  [Great 
applause.]  And  I  might  speak  of  the  Naval  De- 


16 


partment  in  like  terms.  [Cheers.]  We  improvised 
the  gieatest  navy  in  the  world,  and  are  now  begin- 
ning to  sweep  the  miserable  pirate  ships  of  our 
enemies  from  the  seas.  [Applause.]  Nay,  in  ad- 
dition to  that,  we  are  beginning  to  present  an  in- 
vincible iron  front  to  the  nations  of  the  earth. 
[Cheers.] 

We  have  had  a  Minister  of  Finance  who  has  con- 
duett  d  tlie  war  up  to  the  maximum  of  about  two 
thousand  millions  of  debt,  without  borrowing  a  dol- 
lar from  a  foreign  country.  [Applause]  These 
base,  miserable  traitors,  these  cowardly  traitors  in 
our  midst,  who  prate  about  the  depression  of  cur- 
rency— why,  it  is  a  success  beyond  human  contem- 
plation. The  world  has  never  seen  anything  like  it. 
And  it  was  based,  by  the  great  man  who  originated 
it,  upon  the  faith  he  had  in  the  patriotism  of  the 
American  people.  [Cheers.]  When  he  wanted 
to  borrow  money,  he  conferred  with  the  bankers  in 
the  East,  who  felt  that  they  hold  the  big,  long,  and 
well  filled  purse,  and  that  they  had  a  kind  of  right 
to  lend,  as  well  as  the  power  to  loan.  And  when 
he  negotiated  with  them  about  the  first  thirty  mil- 
lion dollars,  and  found  the  per  centage  at  which  it 
could  be  had.  lie  then  said:  "Gentlemen,  that  will 
only  last  about  thirty  days;  what  can  we  obtain 
the'  nextv  fifty  millions  for  ?  "  They  looked  wild, 
and  very  serious,  as  moneyed  men  always  look 
[laughter]  and  they  named  a  figure,  although  very 
loth  to  do  it  — did  not  desire  to  press  it.  "  Now," 
said  he,  "  gentlemen,  that  will  last  thirty  or  !orty 
days  more :  what  can  I  obtain  the  next  fifty  millions 
for?"  They  could  not  answer.  It  was  an  exten- 
sion of  credit  by  the  Government  that  they  had 
never  contemplated,  and  it  was  a  use  to  wh  ch 
they  had  never  thought  of  putting  their  purses. 
"Well,"  said  he,  "  gentlemen,  it  is  apparent  to  me 


that  you  have  not  got  any  credit  at  all  unless  the 
Government  has  a  credit,  too.  If  the  people  of  this 
Republic  do  not  believe  that  this  Government  shall 
exist,  your  credit  is  not  worth  anything.  [Cheers.] 
If  the  people  of  the  Republic  do  believe  it,  and 
that  it  can  and  will  exist,  that  is  the  best  basis  for 
borrowing  in  the  world/1  [Cheers]  And  it  was 
upon  that  plain,  simple,  invincible  logic  that  he 
based  his  credit  scheme.  And  what  have  you  got 
to-day?  You  have  got  the  securities  of  your  Gov- 
e'nment — gold  paying  bonds — scattered  through 
ev^ry  loyal  Slate  in  the  Umon.  [Cheers.]  The 
banks  have  them.  The  merchants  have  them.  The 
mechanics  have  them.  The  laboring  men  have 
them.  And  servant-girls  have  their  one-hundred- 
dollar  bonds.  [Cheers.]  And  the  credit  of  the 
Government  is  safely  lodged  in  the  faith  of  the  peo- 
ple in  the  perpetuity  of  the  Republic.  [Great  ap- 
plause.] But  the  Copperheads  whine.  TVieywhinel 
The  majority  of  them  in  this  State  never  had  much 
money  to  lend.  [Laughter.]  To  use  a  trite  and 
common  phrase,  they  had  an  excellent  reputation 
on  the  borrow,  [renewed  laughter,]  but  they  had  a 
very  bad  reputation  on  the  pay.  [Great  merri- 
ment.] And,  Mr.  Chairman,  and  Mr.  Mayor,  when 
a  man  is  bad  on  the  pay,  it  is  not  any  wonder  to 
find  him  bad  on  the  patriotism.  [Applause.] 

But,  thank  God  again,  the  Republic  will  live. 
[Applause.]  It  lives  in  the  hearts,  in  the  minds,  in 
the  courage,  and  in  the  virtue  of  the  people. 
[Cheers.]  We  are  told  that  there  is  one  glory  of 
the  sun,  and  another  glory  of  the  stars.  Let  it  be 
our?!,  f,.llow  patriots  and  citizens,  that  the  Republic 
shall  live  in  glory,  represented  by  the  national 
>tarry  ensign — the  signal  of  hope,  the  light  of  the 
world,  and  the  security  of  liberty  for  mankind. 
[Tremendous  applause.] 


